


Lion-Heart

by MoonWitch96



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Eventual Romance, F/M, Modern Girl in A Song of Ice & Fire, Worldbuilding, heads will roll
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-11-29
Packaged: 2019-03-04 19:16:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 8
Words: 14,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13371375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoonWitch96/pseuds/MoonWitch96
Summary: Areli Lannister was born after Tyrion. She has taken her mother's last strength. And she was royally screwed to be born into the family that literally fucked over half the people in the Song of Ice & Fire. But she is a Lioness with Heart, and anyone can take the Game of Thrones and throw it on its head if they know enough. Please Read & Review.





	1. Ana I

She died in ice.

Or, well, to be more accurate, she died in freezing as fuck water _beneath_ the ice. But she doesn't think that explanation is poetic enough to what happens to her next. Didn't suit the nature of the song that was her life. Not to mention a bloody mouthful…

She was laughing at the time, trying to catch up to her sister, Amy. It was late, freezing, and they were more than a little tipsy. They knew better, should have known better than to go out onto the small pond next to their childhood home in the cold Alaskan night. But they had had a little too much hot cider spiked with some lovely rum and they felt like they were kids again- fearless and unafraid of their childhood stomping grounds. She had tugged on her hair, teasing her about how messy it was in the wind in comparison to her short locks.

It's when she hears the crack beneath her sister that she panics, pushing her forward so harshly that Amy falls and slips and slid across the ice to land in a bed of snow. Ana Lee isn't so lucky, the ice breaking beneath her in a fraction of a second. The pond is deep- enough to go over her sister's head and she's more than a head taller then her and Ana is right in the middle. She meets her eyes- bright brown and just like her's for a fraction of a second before the ice gives way.

When she had been Ana Lee, she had never been a stranger to the cold. She had lived in Alaska for all of her life, and this isn't her first accidental dip in the too icy water. However, their parents' small home is miles away from any sort of help and she's stupid and drunk enough to gasp in surprise the second she registers how bloody _cold_  the water is.

She doesn't live long enough to register much after that.

It's only until she breathes again, in a different body, that she remembers how bloody stupid she and her sister had been, and she begs anyone that is listening that her sister hadn't been drunk enough to follow her into the water in zero degrees water in a bad attempt to try and save her even as she died. She spends most of her first months thinking she is in a weird sort of limbo, blind, coming in and out of consciousness because she is a baby and that's a lot of work her body is going through. She sleeps so much- barely keeping coherent half the time and Ana is convinced she is some sort of limbo.

She doesn't quite remember when she realized she had been born in a word very different than her first.

To be fair, when she realizes that she had been reborn, she was more than a little freaked out and had been more focused on the thought that she was a reincarnation. That wasn't the sort of crap that she had believed in her first life- she was a nurse, pragmatic and beyond entrenched in the thought of logic. Imagine her mental-crises when she can see for the first time, and everything so goddamn  _big_. It's a sort of disorienting, to say the least. She wonders, if by chance or by the manipulation of this world's gods that the first face she sees is that of her sister, Cersei Lannister. Just like that of her last life, where the last thing she had seen was her sister Amy's face.

The face is small in a sense that she is only four-years-old. She is a beautiful child, like a cherub with her golden blonde hair and golden-toned skin, lovely green eyes. The little girl had been frowning- plump lips twisted in a firm way that as Areli Lannister, she would learn was mostly Cersei's default expression. Jamie was next to her- nearly identical and just as pretty, but with a large, curious smile on his face. She blinked rapidly at the sight of them, registering and squinting her vision at the sight of the two.

"She looks ugly," and that was the one on the right, a girl, she thinks with a high voice clear and a lilting thing, "Why is she so white?"

"I think she's pretty," and was the one on the left next to her, maybe a boy, voice nearly matching to his twin's, if a shade deeper, he reaches out with hesitant fingers to touch her.

She jerks in surprise because his hand is so  _small_ yet at the same time, it practically covers her entire head. He strokes- soft and with trembling fingertips. She registers that these two young children are hovering over like giants- looming and covering all of her limited vision. _Holy shit._

"She killed mother," the girl whispers as she reaches over to snatch at the boy's hand, tears come to her lovely emerald eyes,"Along with the other thing."

"They are not things!" said the little boy hotly, shaking the girl's hand away.

"He's too small and she's too pale. They're going to die anyway, I heard the Maester say so. Come on Jamie, let's leave."

They both left, the small boy- Jamie hesitating, reaching over to pet her head for a fraction of a second before he took off. It was her in her weak attempt to follow him with her head, that she realizes that something is next to her. Or rather, something moving next to her. She struggles, and in a herculean effort she turns and sees that she is not alone. That warm wiggly thing that had been her companion for the majority of her new life is another baby. He gurgles at her, blue eyes intent, one with a slightly overblown pupil that indicate that the baby had Physiologic anisocoria, a somewhat common occurrence of being born with one larger than the other pupil. She blinks. The baby coos at her.

Ana tries, desperately tries to register that yes, she is a baby's body.

_And my- our birth killed our mother._

She does the only thing a baby can do.

She cries.


	2. Ana II

Being a baby, Ana finds, after the few days (what she actually estimates to be a couple weeks, considering the number of times the light changed in the room from frightfully bright to devastatingly dark) of freaking out- is completely boring. And completely humiliating for a grown-woman of twenty-eight years to be thrust into that role. And, she suspects, she is a bane to her wet nurse. Because she is fussy and very reluctant to eat, as she isn't too keen on munching on a stranger's chest, and she is completely more aware of her surroundings. She lives in what can only be a castle or someone who really dug the aesthetic- stone walls adorned with what she thinks might be beautiful tapestries that she can only see as blobs of colors, enormous windows that were floor to ceiling that she can vaguely see has blobs of colors as well. Stained glass?

Her eyesight is slowly developing, the world is a frightful blur of indistinction and off perception.

The air is constantly drafty, and the only insulation seems to be provided by blankets that they swaddle her and her twin in, the warmth given to her by what she suspects is large roaring fire(she can see the lights flickering, and the crackles are so loud that it makes her hiccup in fright sometimes). It's alarming, to say the least, especially as he hears her wet nurse complain to a very old man that comes in to check on her and her twin every few hours:

"It's completely baffling," murmured the old man, gently running his old, calloused fingers over her soft, fine hair. Part of her, the infant part, she is sure, relishes the brief, gentle contact, she swears the only time she and her twin have been picked up was to eat, and there was always a certain clinical-ness to the way the wet-nurse held them to her chest, "She was the most peaceful of the two and now she is completely restless."

She makes a brief sound of agreement, huffing and coming to grip at his hand, trying to prolong the contact, because she feels small and afraid and knows for damn sure babies aren't supposed to be this touch starved. Seriously, where the fuck was their father? He hasn't come to see them once! Neither had those two twins, which she suspected were her older siblings. Her vocal cords are weak, developing and the most she can manage is a few seconds of a hum or weak gurgles. She wishes she could speak- ask a question to know where the hell she is. Or to scream at the top of her lungs that she is a reincarnated woman that really doesn't want to suck on some stranger's chest and can she please have some formula? But she can't.

The old man pauses, brows furrow.

"Still hardly cries, though, me lord," supplied the young woman, sighing slightly. Ana cannot see her, only hear her soft, slightly hoarse voice from the side. She knows however, that the wet-nurse is a woman that was in her late twenties, with brown hair, roughly hewed face with golden-tone skin and a steady deft hand at changing both she and her twin(now that was a humiliation that had Ana growling and kicking weakly at the woman's face each time).

The old man looms closer, watching her with keen, sharp and surprisingly clear eyes for a man of his age, which Ana would peg at eight or ninety. A large and harsh chain dangles down his neck, glinting different colors. Ana studies it, curious and reaches for it with weak but firm grabby hands that all infants seem to possess. When she manages to bring it closer, she realizes it is a chain of heavy, different colored links, different metal? How curious. It's definitely a fashion statement.

"Her lungs are clearer," he says, gently leading her hands away from his chain, and then he leaned his head against her chest in a careful way, she wonders briefly, if he has lost his stethoscope, Ana knew that she had always managed to lose the damn thing herself if the head nurse, Tommy, hadn't made her carry one religiously around her neck, clipped to her shirt as well as one in her pocket. She relishes the warmth his head brings, her hands coming to fist automatically into his longish snowy white hair, "Her heart beats stronger. As does the boy's. May chance the two live."

The old man lifts his head, carefully uncurling her fists from his hair. After a moment of hesitation, he brings a gentle hand to the fluff on her head, and she preens at the attention, gurgling happily at the warmth. Vaguely, if she squints, she can see the old man smile as he threads his fingertips carefully through her hair. She thinks that he must be very tall if all she can see is a vagueness of his face even when he is standing so close to her shared crib. The baby next to her, wiggles, pressing against her in a plea for attention as well that has Ana reaching out with a hand to grip his own arm. She suppresses a cringe when the baby stuffs her fist into their mouth, gnawing without teeth on her delicate fist. She allows it because the baby evidently isn't a reincarnated twenty-eight-year-old and just wants touch as much as she does. She knows why she wants touch, craves, and can get it better because of it but the baby does not. He just  _wants._

"Well, tha' be good for his lordship, then. His wife dead but his two new babes won't die with her, may the Stranger be good to the Lady Joanna."

"Clutch your tongue fool, Lord Tywin adored his wife like nothing else. The two babes are deformed, one a dwarf while the other has skin of death. He will not be satisfied by either babes."

Ana froze, blinking in sheer utter shock at the two names. She is so surprised she jerks her hand out of her twin's mouth with a sharp tug that has the baby whining.

_No fucking way._

"But they are such gentle things. A gift from his wife-"

"Tywin Lannister is not known for his need for gentle things. I fear with Lady Joanna gone, he has lost all want or need of it at all. She was his tempering hand, his conscious. And she is dead."

_I'm…. I'm in Game of Thrones. I'm a Lannister… Oh God, I'm Tryion's twin._

_**FUCK.** _

Ana tries to deconstruct, logically, what the hell is happening to her. She does a spectacularly bad job at it. Because she is in a world that literally has heads rolling left and right. And she just happened to be born into a family that fucks over half of the people of this world. She is screwed. Utterly and utterly screwed. She had been a fan of the show, if a little off put at its relatively graphic nature, and had never read the books more than a cursory glance before she couldn't stand the thought of getting emotionally attached to the Starks more than she already was through the television show because it did not  _end well for them_. And she was frightened because… Well, she was a  _Lannister._ She had  _hated_  the Lannisters (Cersei and Tywin and Jaime to an extent, really, Tyrion had been the exception by being awesome) even after it had been revealed that they had been played just as hard as the Starks by batshit crazy Lysa and cunning Littlefinger.

Because the Lannisters were not good, or kind, or just.

They were cruel and ruthless, without compassion or honor, all about their dubious reputation of a Great House and everything that Ana Lee stood against.

_A Lannister always pays their debts. Incest Twins that bring downs a dynasty and devolves into a civil war of epic proportions. Cold as fuck and more than likely child abuse dick of a father via Tywin. Twisted and power hungry Cersei. Arrogant Jaime, cocky, destroyer of two dynasties Targaryen and Baratheon, one justly, and one kept for his lover. Tyrion, intelligent, jaded by something out of his control._

_Hear me roar,_ she thought faintly as she began to scream in protest.  _Because reincarnation was one fucking thing, this, this was ludicrous and that wasn't how_ _ **shit**_ _should work._

"Oh dear, there she goes again," says her wet nurse as Ana lets out a wail of disbelief, "She's as gentle as a doe and then she just starts a fit- and if she starts-"

Next, to her, the baby, her twin what can only be  _Tyrion Lannister_  starts to wail with her.

"Hmm. Perhaps it'd be best to separate them then. I only kept them together because I thought they were not long for this world."

Ana takes a deep breath, shuddering before she stops screaming altogether. She swings away from the Maester with a strength she didn't know she had, and grips at Tyrion. Tyrion. Her brother. He was so small... He was… He was just a baby. She thinks of all the terrible things that happen to him, heart shuddering at the mere thought.  _No,_ she thinks, gripping the baby next to her, her companion of the last few weeks, months? With her mind whirling, confused and in sheer disbelief, she resolves that this baby, Tyrion or not, would not suffer.

It wasn't in her nature.

_I swear by Apollo the physician, and Asclepius, and Hygieia and Panacea and all the gods and goddesses as my witnesses, that, according to my ability and judgment, I will keep this Oath and this contract:_

_To hold him who taught me this art equally dear to me as my parents, to be a partner in life with him, and to fulfill his needs when required; to look upon his offspring as equals to my own siblings, and to teach them this art, if they shall wish to learn it, without fee or contract; and that by the set rules, lectures, and every other mode of instruction, I will impart a knowledge of the art to my own sons, and those of my teachers, and to students bound by this contract and having sworn this Oath to the law of medicine, but to no others._

_I will use those dietary regimens which will benefit my patients according to my greatest ability and_ judgment _, and I will do no harm or injustice to them._

_I will not give a lethal drug to anyone if I am asked, nor will I advise such a plan; and similarly I will not give a woman a pessary to cause an abortion._

_In purity and according to divine law will I carry out my life and my art._

_I will not use the knife, even upon those suffering from stones, but I will leave this to those who are trained in this craft._

_Into whatever homes I go, I will enter them for the benefit of the sick, avoiding any voluntary act of impropriety or corruption, including the seduction of women or men, whether they are free men or slaves._

_Whatever I see or hear in the lives of my patients, whether in connection with my professional practice or not, which ought not to be spoken of outside, I will keep secret, as considering all such things to be private._

_So long as I maintain this Oath faithfully and without corruption, may it be granted to me to partake of life fully and the practice of my art, gaining the respect of all men for all time. However, should I transgress this Oath and violate it, may the opposite be my fate._

Her sister had thought her an idiot, for being so obsessive to memorize the original(if translated) Hippocratic oath, as it was not something actually sworn to. At least not as beyond more than intent. But for Ana, it had always been a center of focus. A reminder of why she became a nurse in the first place, not just because the money was good, but because she cared about people. Loved to be helpful, especially if it was within her meager power.  _Why on earth_ , she thinks, _hadn't she been born a Stark? Or a Tully? One of those honorable houses which she would have fit in well?_ But it didn't matter. No in the grand scheme, she thinks, clutching and humming at her twin to soothe his crying.

Because she hadn't.

 _She was a Lannister_ , she thought with a twinge of hysteria, and she resolved right then and there to make sure that this baby, this boy next to her, who had this cruel world stacked against him, wouldn't suffer, because he was the only Lannister with honor, with a creed that was not pounded into them like it would to Jamie.

_You'll be safe. I swear it, Tyrion Lannister because I will damn make sure of it._


	3. Ana III

Ana was humming to herself when Jaime Lannister snuck into her and Tyrion's nursery in the dead of night.

It had been a couple days, of her freaking out, and then resigning herself to be unable to do _anything_  constructive as an infant. The most she could do was hug and console the baby next to her, and work on the fact that she was a developing infant with the mind and memory of a woman well in control of her motor skills. She could worry about every other insane thing later. She could have heard wrong- infant brain and all- or it could be a horrendous coincidence about the world she has been reborn in. Shit like that just didn't happen, not really.  _Maybe,_  she sometimes thinks snidely,  _I'm in a coma after nearly dying like a fucking moron._  So she instead of worrying about Ice zombies and dragons, she decided to dedicate herself to working on her body to gain independence as quickly as possible.

In one word, it really really  _sucked_.

So she focused her limited conscious on one, her lack-luster motor skills, and training her vocal cords to develop enough to speak. Testing her grip, her mobility on moving her legs in practiced kicks and stretches(if she can get herself to just be able to  _support_ her damn head she will consider that a plus). Hence the humming in the middle of the night to try and mature her vocal cords faster, a disjointed bit of vowel and consonant sounds that sounded weak and off. Hence being completely unprepared when a small, cherubic face peaked over her, blond hair falling down as a curtain. She stopped in shock, especially when the person smiled, showing off the fact that they were missing teeth, and how brilliant their eyes were- like budding leaves at the start of spring if she were to get poetic.

"Hello," and the voice was high, sweet, soft and secret.

Ana blinked, and automatically, she responded with a soft murmur of sounds that were not quite a hello back, but at least it was a response. Most people didn't catch it- her lackluster attempts at speaking- whoever expects a baby to speak or understand, after all? The boy, who could only be Jaime, smiled wider. Carefully, as if afraid that he would hurt her, his hands came around to rest on either side of her face.

"I'm your older brother, you know," he said, surprisingly clear speech as he looked down at her, he only slurred his words slightly in that high voice of someone that was four or so, "Cersei says that she's my only sister, but Mother told me as the oldest boy, I would have to protect all of you."

He extends another hand to Tyrion, fast asleep. His small, golden-tanned hand slowly into Tyrion's thickening thatch of wild, blond curls. Gently, the boy runs his hands through, humming in a sweet if unpracticed voice.

"So I will. I don't think you're ugly at all. You're both fine!"

Ana blinks, completely surprised, but is reminded of the fact that before he had revealed the truth behind the ordeal of poor Tysha, that Tyrion Lannister had loved his older brother, Jaime, despite all his flaws, for being his _protector_. The one person in his fucked up family in his corner, And he had well reason too.

_Well, fuck._

"I wish I knew what to call you," continued Jaime, completely unaware of the fact that he was shaking Ana's wild resolve to protect only herself and little Tyrion, "Father hasn't given you names before he left for King's Landing..."

The looming face's smile falters, narrowing his eyes.

"Maybe I will get to name you instead!" he says, forcefully smiling again, "I think I could think of nice names. Cersei could help! Well, Cersei doesn't like you, but she won't always not like you. She mad about mother… But you didn't do anything. Maester said so."

"What will you tell me of them?" said a voice, from, distance and utterly cool.

"It seems that they will live, my Lord Tywin," came the voice of the Maester, soft, croaked and distant, "They grow stronger every day."

With a great effort, Ana turned her head towards the voices, frustrated when all she got was faint outlines with her limited vision, blobs of color against earth tone walls in the dark. She gurgled in annoyance, twisting and scooting closer to the colors, trying to make out the shapes more clearly. The figures of color froze- in the doorway? She couldn't quite tell. The fire had dimmed hours ago. Having the vision of baby was  _bullshit._ Jaime, to her surprise, curled around her, and over Tyrion, biting his lower lip. He was trembling.

"Jaime. What are you doing here?" and that was the first voice, not the Maester, cold, displeased and Ana freezes, eyes widening.

Jaime straightens, deliberately scrambling out of the crib with a clumsy step. His hands, still shaking, was on her head and Tyrion's. She is struck by how incredibly small they are, despite how large they feel on her infant head.  _Holy shit he can't be that much older then Tryion… And he has just lost his mother._

"I wanted to be with them. Cersei doesn't like to come-"

"Jaime," says what she assumes is Tywin Lannister's voice, he sounds irritable and tired, "Get out."

_Well, isn't someone a bunch of fucking rainbows…_

"But Father-"

"Now, Jaime. The guard will escort you back, it is late and you have lessons."

Jaime gives them one last pet.

"Yes, Father," said the little boy, sounding completely small. No longer the babbling boy.

Ana watches them, faintly, as the small figure, dressed in what she thinks is all white, scurries away. The two larger figures, come over, the slightly shorter of the two, comes over to peer at her. Ana wasn't a stranger to grief. After all, being a nurse in the ER, she had seen her fair amount of death and impossible situations that had worried lovers, parents, brothers and sisters, friends sobbing and helpless. She wasn't however, completely jaded to it, could understand it and find it in the strangest and hardest of faces. So when she saw Tywin's face for the first time- well.

She saw  _grief._

_The Lion that still had claws. But even lions can love. Even lions can lose._

She blinks, at this large looming face- she can't see anything of Cersei or Jaime in this man. Oh, he has their features, the nose, the high cheekbones, the curled blond hair(slightly overgrown to what she suspects is usually sheared close to his head). But his face is not as soft, but instead severe and his cheeks are hollowed out. His green eyes, his eyes  _blaze_  in their grief, peeking in from his sunken gaze and dark bruises beneath. His face may be still as stone, but this man, this man is in  _agony_.

"Genders?" he snaps, voice rough and coarse with lack of sleep. But still as cold as the freezing water that killed her.

"... Female for the pale one my lord, and male for the small-"

"For the imp. A second son then, a dwarf," he says, voice not growing in his anger, but rather going colder, freezing while his green eyes are still blazing, "And a pale sickly thing. I thought her dead if not for her moving eyes."

Ana blinks again.

"Yes, my Lord. Most curious. If you see, even her hair is paler..."

Ana's mind blaze with the information.  _Melanin deficiency?Selective or complete ablism? Do genetic disorders run in the Lannister family? Well, I think Joanna and Tywin are supposed to be cousins… Inbreeding, not as bad as the Dragons..._ Unbidden, the slightly insane, whimsical thought that it is a reflection of her death(she's seen hyperthermia rendered corpses or people on the cusp, after all, the brutal paleness and blue tinted limbs) is brutally pushed down. _Bullshit._

"Did… What occurred- Before I went to her? Did Joanna see fit to name them before her-."

He can't even seem to say the words.

"No my lord. She just wished to hold them both. Then you came in."

Tywin is silent, then, eyes still blazing emerald in the low light, cooly, darkly looking at both her and the baby next to her. Ana exhales a breath she hadn't known she had been holding, as she watches those blazing eyes sparkle with unshed tears. She wonders, at the fact that she doesn't remember her own birth. At that fact that she has gained a firm consciousness what she suspects is weeks later. Part of her is glad of it, as she watches this cold man drown in grief.

"I see. Are you sure they are to live the year?"

The Maester hesitates before he sighs.

"Yes, my lord. More than likely. They have grown in strength. The babes will live."

Tywin Lannister, from what she remembers in the show, has never shown weakness. Only cool contempt and cunning. The only time had been once as far as she remembered watching, and that was when Tyrion had killed him, and even then it had been a weakness of death and rage of disobedience. But that is years from now. More than thirty, she thinks, and even the coldest of men that love have their moments of frailty. And he shows it as he snaps his eyes shut, bares his teeth, fisted hands coming to slam on either side of both her and Tyrion, a silent impossible to see slight shake of his shoulders as the reality of what has happened to his wife comes over him. As she looks at him, she knows that this man is most likely only a few years older than her-  _she's no longer twenty-eight-_  or perhaps even younger then she assumes, tempered harshly by the death of his wife, by being forced to slog to make his house rise above all reproach or mockery again. The people of Westeros marry young...

_Tywin Lannister is human._

She lets out a soft whine, a soft keening in the back of her throat because she doesn't want to see this in anyone, not even this man, who she knows too much of. Without hesitation, without care, she rolls, hands clasping at his clenched fists. She hums a weak gurgle that vibrates through her chest as she focuses clumsily fingers at the man's fist.

_I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry._

It's a chant in her head again and again because she wasn't even supposed to be here! Joanna Lannister has always been dead in her mind, a name drop in a show she had enjoyed. But the man hovering over her menacingly  _knew_ that woman. Had just lost his wife. But she can't help but feel that it's her bloody fault.

_I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry._

Shaking, Tywin Lannister wrenches his hand away, straightening. She nearly tumbles out of the crib, had it not been the wooden bars. She blinks, a low whine escaping her in surprise and grief. Because her only crime is dying and rebirth, all completely out of her control.

"They shall be Areli and Tyrion. It was the names Joanna and I discussed."

"I shall send the official missives, My Lord, as well as set to add them to the family codex. Their name day... Shall be today instead of-"

"Good. And strip all portraits of Joanna. Nothing is to be left in the castle, do you hear me?"

"Yes, My Lord Tywin."


	4. Ana IV & Areli I

_Ana Lee realizes she's dreaming because when she lifts her head, she does not struggle with the weight of her it, with a weak, underdevelop infant's neck, because she can sit up with little to no issue, and because when she looks, she understands that she is lying in thick, powdery snow and feels no cold. It coats her thin, summer dress made of cotton(_ _**normal** _ _to her, above her knees and reveals the scar she had gotten on her left knee when Amy had accidentally tripped with a snow shovel in hand and nearly shattered her knee cap), dusts along the white fabric with a faint gleam of ice, somehow not melting at all. Her breath comes in little white puffs from her mouth, but she doesn't feel the familiar sting of freezing air in her lungs, nor does she feel the burn of cold on her skin. Which is still the same shade of slightly bronze tan, not red or blue with the cold she should feel._

_She blinks, looking at her hands,_ _**her** _ _hands, not the foreign, chubby things she glimpses in her waking moments, and despairs at the fact that these hands are gone, that the callouses she had earned through diligence and hard work of Aikido* had gone and died, leaving new, soft and tender skin in its wake. She looks away from her hands, from herself, not wanting to linger on what was forever_ _**gone,** _ _and out of reach, and inspects the landscape around her._

_It's a forest, dark and quiet she notes, blinking, with a small pool beside her, dark and deep. She shivers, memories of bubbles escaping her lips in a rapidly decreasing amount, of cold so strong that it_ _**burned** _ _and a darkness that crept much too quickly across her consciousness as she drowned. She turns rapidly away and is struck by the freaky thing in front of her._

_Vaguely, she recalls that the television show had completely and utterly failed to capture this. The framing of the tree in its first appearance had been from far away, had been centered on the entire area with the tree encroaching around Eddard Stark and panning with the movement of Catelyn Stark coming towards her husband. In actuality, there is no way that someone would be able to dismiss the sheer massive size of the tree, both physically and in an emotional sense. The vividness of its bark and of its leaves are so stark, so startling that she can't look away. The heart wirewood of Winterfell's bark is pale, frightfully so, whiter even then the crisp, perfect snow she was sitting in. The dark red leaves, and a long and melancholy face carved in the bark, its deep-cut eyes red, sap seeping as if it was freshly cut, not dried, are vividly red like venous blood. It is both haunting and beautiful in a grotesque way, and something crawls down her spine at the site of it._

_She can_ _**feel** _ _that she is not alone, that there is something, or many things with her, here in her dream._

_She stands, scrambles to her feet really, ever conscious of both pond and tree. She is not sure which is worst, really, a reminder of her death or the certainty that this world, this crazy as fuck world she had been reborn too, was a mystical place of magic and monsters._

" _I wished I had understood the merit of the Godswood, before," said a soft voice, gently._

_She whirls around, squeaks at the sound of another human being in what she knows is a dream. Somewhere, in the back of her mind, she registers that the woman, who must've spoken, is beautiful. She is a combination of tranquil and grace, of ethereal and warmth: she is golden blonde, willowy in limbs but generous in hips and breasts, and tall, and her eyes, her eyes are as soft as newborn leaves in spring. Jaime's eyes. Mystic dreams? She wonders, and is alarmed at the thought. First reincarnation into a fictional universe and now this shit?_

_The golden woman smiles, softly at her._

" _Hello Areli," she whispers, knowing and wondrous. Her brow, delicate and arched, furrowed then, "Though I fear the name Ana is much more comfortable for you at the moment."_

_Ana was always quick to put two and two together._

" _Jo...Joanna? Joanna Lannister?"_

" _My, you are quick to understand, sweetling."_

_The woman stands, all but floats to her, slender, elegant hands reaching. They hold her hands, firm, and for the first time, she feels a sensation in this dream, and she feels- Joanna Lannister's hands... Warm and soft. Gentle. Familiar. Full of something that she hadn't realized she had **needed** and missed._

_Tears, unbidden, come to her eyes. Her vision blurs, that beautiful face a haze._

" _This… Is this real?"_

" _Do you have a reason to doubt this?"_

" _This is a dream."_

_Perfect, full and lush lips twitch._

" _Of course. But dreams are realms of their own. And all realms are connected if one knows where to go."_

_Thousands of questions race through her mind, fall onto the tip of her tongue. Because there is knowledge in those spring-green eyes, in the wry set of those lips. Instead, she says:_

" _I'm sorry. I'm so sorry you never got to raise your children. I'm sorry I'm an interloper in your family. I'm sorry... I'm so sorry I killed you."_

_Joanna surprises her by laughing and by letting tears slip down her cheeks._

" _Oh, Areli, you are not to blame. You didn't not kill me, nor did Tyrion."_

_Joanna Lannister's face blurs more, just a haze of colors, in the wake of her own tears._

" _I'm sorry all the same. I shouldn't be here. This is wrong," panic grips her throat, seizes her lungs, "I'm not Areli. I'm Ana Lee. Twenty-eight, I'm a nurse from Alaska! I'm a big sister to Amy, the daughter of Amelia and Arthur Lee. I shouldn't exist here, I_ _ **shouldn't.**_ _"_

_Joanna hands, long and slender come to rest on her face, delicately, as one would hold a newborn._

" _Oh, my dear, Areli. You_ _ **do**_ _exist. Ana Lee died. Buried and mourned."_

" _No, please, don't tell me that-"_

" _But you know it to be true. You've told yourself so many times... But of course, you never quite believe yourself, fully, ever, do you, Areli?"_

_Fury, panic and something she can't name claws its way through her. She shoves Joanna harshly away, pushing the taller woman to the ground, into the snow, pushing the powdered top layer around her in an explosion of dust that catches the vague, muted light of this dream. She backs away from this woman, shaking her head, hands out to push her again if she comes to close._

" _NO! NO! I'm ANA LEE. Ana Lee. Twenty-eight years old, I'm a nurse from Alaska-"_

_Joanna sighs, sadly, and gets to her feet, before taking a step forward. Ana takes a hasty step back, screaming again and again what she is-was- And she feels a swoop in her stomach, a turning in her gut as her foot sinks into cold,_ _**burning,** _ _water. She scrambles forward immediately, straight into Joanna's arms._

" _Areli Lannister," she whispers, soft, sweet and sure._

_Ana struggles in the woman's grasp, who is frightfully strong for someone with such slender arms._

" _Please-"_

_Gently, and somehow, that made it worse, Joanna Lannister pressed her lips to… Areli's forehead. She felt herself grow smaller, rapidly, and Joanna's limbs came to cradle her with the expertise of a second time mother. Her eyes blurred, lost focus, not only because of tears, but because her eyes were not quite strong enough to catch up with her memories of clarity, and she could barely lift her head without Joanna's support._

" _You are right where you are meant to be."_

**OOOOOOOOOOOOOO**

The dream made a few things clear for her. She is not Ana Lee. Not… Not quite anymore. She is what she is. She had never been insanely religious, had only vaguely wished for a higher state of being, of other beyond her body in distant, dubious and uncertainties. Science and logic had always ruled her life more certainly than any sort of vague inclination for something spiritual. Reincarnation and the concrete remembrance of being someone else made her more certain before in terms that there was something  _beyond_ in the Universe, if with even more questions and frustration- she had been given a taste of Universal(Multi-Universal?) understanding. Death is not the end. Not completely. Death brought an end- but only to a certain degree. She suppose the law of energy remained true- it can never be destroyed. Only converted, transformed to other energy, losing some of its self in the wake of that change, but still being, in concept, the same energy.

Ana Lee was her previous form. Her old body, her old self. It was not a cosmic fluke that she had been reborn.  _You are right where you are meant to be._ Perhaps that she remembered, was the fluke, perhaps not. But that had not changed the very thing she had been in denial of...

Areli.

She wonders at that name, Areli Lannister. It follows in her mind, lyrical and sweet, and in the dead of night, with no one around but her oblivious twin, she practices the sounds on her clumsy tongue. Chants that and her other name,  _Ana Lee_  (Old? That implied that she had given up that part of herself, shred it up in favor of Areli, and that wasn't quite right. Real? That meant that Areli was a farce, didn't incompus  _who_ she was now, so it didn't quite fit either.) on her lips as a way of practice. She forms each sound of the alphabet, molds it around her teethless mouth. Training tongue and vocal cords alike.

She wonders if Areli has a meaning, a significance in Westeros. Ana had meant grace, which had always struck her as ironic. She hadn't been graceful- her stride had always come not from her hips but from the sturdy swing of her arms, purposeful and utterly squared., As Ana she had been short, barely edging on four eleven, with thin and coltish limbs that didn't quite work well together, with a round face with thin lips and high, thick brows, arched that had always made her look annoyed. Perfect bitch face, Amy had constantly told her with a grin. Her eyes had been brown and her hair had been a mess of black, thick curls to her chin. She had a pronance cleft chin that she hated and a mole just below her lips.

She wonders what she looks like now.

She knows she's pale- people have not stopped bitching about it since she's been able to focus long enough to hear them. And it's a frightening sort of pale, she's caught glimpse of her reflection in people's eyes(a blob of white against their iris and pupil), seen her limbs, seen how frightfully translucent her skin is, blue spidery veins abound in her young skin. She really thinks she has a sort of melanin deficiency, though she isn't quite sure if its albinism, as it could just be something she grows out of...

She prays that this damn world has some form of sunscreen, because it's going to be a  _bitch_ otherwise if she doesn't outgrow her paleness. She thinks she's blonde, she is a Lannister after all, but she wonders if her eyes are blue, or green or brown again  _(vaguely, she wishes for Joanna's eyes_ ), if she has a button nose or a full mouth like her biological mother. She can guess, by bringing her hands to her face, but she also has to remind herself that she's only a few months old at the youngest or a maybe nearing a year at the oldest, and that her features are ill-defined, full of baby fat.

She wonders, sometimes, when she can't even bring herself to  _try_ to do anything if she has gone into a depression over what has happened to her. Because after weeks of denial and wild plans to keep herself stimulated and changing the future she knows is to come, and that  _fucking dream._ She had realized that she had not faced her situation properly, not really. She had stuck her head in the sand because her rational mind had screamed at her that what had happened on the pond with Amy was not  _real_. That this, being Areli, was not real. That the boy next to her was nothing but a dream, a fantasy of something she couldn't quite explain… But that dream made her understand the painful reality she had pushed away, that she had hidden away with a determination of 'playing' her way through this world as if it had no consequence.

_I died._

She doesn't want it. She wants her parents back. She wants Amy back. She wants every person she had lost back- her job- her  _life._  But it's not happening. She's not even sure, if her memories of being Ana Lee are right, are suppose to happen. She wonders, in her more whimsical moments, if she is a freak accident of the reincarnation cycle to remember her old life. If she has accidentally fallen through the cracks of the universe she had originated from and fallen to one where Westeroes was not just a story cooked up by a man inspired by Tolkien and English War of the Roses. If instead, her karma is really just that  _bad_  to end up as the twin of Tyrion Lannister, a woman in a medieval society, one that might have a genetic defect on top of it.

But that is only sometimes, and she usually pushes that back. Because Areli Lannister a was never the type of person to mope in a rut of indecision and lack of focus. Because she was a woman, who, in a previous life had paid for medical school out of pocket and scholarship, that had scrimped and saved for herself, worked two jobs in crappy restaurants and grinned and bore it. If she can survive medical school without losing her goddamn mind, she can survive  _this_. Whatever this is.

_You are right where you are meant to be._

A sleepy gurgle breaks her from her thoughts. She looks over, to Tyrion, constant companion in this new life. His eyes, one with its over-blown pupil, the other a bright, had started to change* into a vivid green that seemed to be the shade of Joanna's eyes. They are both half-lidded, heavy with sleep and contentment. His hands, just like his mother's, are warm when they touch her arm, as he pulls her closer, his tiny, not quite strong body bringing her into a clumsy embrace. He comes even closer than before, tiny, fragile body flush with her's, snuggling into the crook of her neck with a small woof of air that tickles sensitive, newborn skin.

"I'm… I'm right where I'm meant to be," the words are clumsy on her untrained tongue. Not quite right, too slurred to be understood unless you really paid attention. In the dark of the Casterly Rock nursery, no one but Tryion heard, and he was much too young to understand.

Tyrion gurgled an answer back nonetheless, a happy, soft thing that is done with an unpracticed smile( _a milestone! facial muscle development*!_ )

Slowly, weak muscles in her own face shift, and for the first time, Areli smiles.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN:
> 
> I should be sleeping. I should be working on school work if my insomnia is kicking my ass. But no. No. I just have to be on A Song of Ice & Fire kick.
> 
> I hope you're all happy.
> 
> I know my muse is giggling their ass off at my expense, surrounded by friggin' plot-bunnies that she loves to fling at me unexpectedly when she thinks I have too much focus on one thing.
> 
> 1*: Aikido... I made Ana Lee know this for a reason. The poor woman has to have a fighting fucking chance in terms of self-defense in Westeros, and if Cersei Lannister couldn't bitch and whine her way into learning how to fight with a sword then I doubt Areli will have a much better chance. It really won't play a big part as far as the earlier chapters beyond a mention of her practicing katas, because that's not the most important thing. I also honestly think that everyone, especially woman, should know some form of self-defense. I have no formal training myself, but I know the weak spots(groin, eyes, stomach, instep, crock of the elbow, back of the neck, fingers), and I always carry something heavy(my big ass, heavy metal water bottle), pepper-spray, and a pocket knife with me at all times. It may not be Westeros, but I've already been nearly mugged in my life twice and followed a couple of times(ah, big city life). In terms of the story, no-weapon self-defense isn't, let's say, the best thing to go up against heavily-armored men with fucking broadswords, but it keeps you nimble, keeps you fast, and it isn't in Areli's nature to be vicious without provocation, so her stance will probably be more akin to get the buggering fuck away from anyone, and surprise the fuck out of anyone when she goes in with a few select hits and maneuvers. 
> 
> 2*: Most babies eyes settle for six months, but can change up to when they're three years old(at least for Caucasians, less pigment). 
> 
> 3*: Reflex smiles end at 2 months, and babies for real at about three months, which, coincidentally gives us an exact time frame for anyone who's curious.
> 
> Year: 366, three months after Joanna's death. Time's a little blurry for Areli. But give her a break, reincarnation is a confusing business.


	5. Jaime I & Areli II

The second time Jaime comes to visit, it is once again, in the dead of night. He is careful, making sure Cersei is asleep in bed next to him, and that it is just before the guards change shift. He is smart enough to get past men and into the quiet, slightly familiar space of the Rock's nursery. He had lived here, slept here, for many days before his mother had grown with child and he and Cersei had been gently moved to rooms closer to their parent's. When Mother had caught Cersei touching him, he had been moved much closer to the nursery again, far away from his sister.

" _Let me see Jaime," said Cersei, eagerly, green eyes, a slight shade darker then his own, bright._

_Jaime had been mildly confused but saw no harm in lifting his shift over his head. Cersei had done the same. Jaime thought that they looked just the same if had not been for Cersei's longer hair, and the fact that she looked different down there. It reminded him of a cowrie shell he had found on the beach and he wondered why she did not look like him._

" _It's funny,"Cersei had said, hands reaching._

_She had grabbed him, forcefully and he had winced. When she began to pet him, Jaime had frowned, and shifted away, only for Cersei to follow._

" _Touch me too Jaime. See how different we are."_

_Jaime had not, only stared at his sister, feeling strange._

" _Stop."_

_She had not._

" _Cersei, sweetling, have you seen your brother he's not in his-" Mother said, and she gasped, their daily drought that made his throat itch, falling from her hands in all mighty crash._

_The glass and tonic ruined Mother's dress, red and simple. And she had stared. And stared. And Jaime had pulled away from his sister, automatically huddling in the way she was staring at them. Cersei had looked at mother, smiling._

" _Look at how funny he looks Mother! Jaime let me show mother!"_

_She had reached again and Jaime had jumped back. Cersei had cried out when Mother had slapped her, not hard, but enough to snap her head forcefully to the side._

" _Get dressed. Both of you. Now," Mother's voice was as soft as a song, sweet and warm. Her voice then was hard and cold._

_Jaime, crying had put on his shift. When his Mother reached for him, he had thought she would hit him too. She did not, only scooped him up and called the guards, telling them to stay outside of Cersei's room._

" _Does you do that often?" his mother had asked, face tight._

_Jaime had only cried, not knowing what was wrong._

" _Jaime, answer me."_

_Jaime had only nodded and cried into his mother's neck._

" _It must never happen again, sweetling. Never again."_

Just like before, he makes his way to the elegant, elaborate crib. And just like before, Tyrion, his younger brother was asleep, and Areli, his youngest sister was awake. He felt, vaguely, cheated that he hadn't gotten to name them, but liked their new names anyway. Areli gurgled a greeting, softly, voice sweet and high.

"Hello again," he whispered, beaming.

She murmured, softly, gently, in a sweet way that had his smile widening.

Hesitantly, he placed a hand in her pale hair,  _like starlight,_ threading it through his fingertips, marveling at how soft the fluff on her head. It was growing long, coming to rest across her shoulders in tight curls, much like his and Cersei's. Her eyes are clear, blue things, looked at him, carefully. He wonders at them, remembering that his mother had mentioned that babe's eyes change, and hoping he could see it happen in his sister and brother.

"I thought babies were supposed to sleep more… Mother said you couldn't play very much when you were born because of it."

The baby gurgled and moved her little shoulders. Had she not been a baby, Jamie would have thought she shrugged. She reached out, little face scrunched up in focus before she grabbed the hand he had on her head. She pulled it to her, and for a moment he thought that he would suck on his fingers, as Cersei liked to do, but the baby only placed it on her face and leaned into it. She hummed, softly, and Jaime felt his smile widen yet again at the small smile on her pale face.

"Do… Do you want to play?" he asked, after a moment, wondering.

The baby's eyes slowly opened. Her brows furrowed again, before she just watched him, without answering. He smiled, and slowly reached out to grab her out of the crib. Areli made a noise, not of protest, but of warning. Jaime blinked before he smiled at her.

"Let's play, Areli," he said, excitedly.

The baby was stiff as he went to lift her out of the crib, but, just as his mother had made him and Cersei practice, he made sure to hold her head carefully. With that, the baby relaxed, tiny arms going around his neck and she huffed as he slowly made his way out of the crib. The baby was heavier then he would have thought considering her size, but she was so  _warm._ She shivered against him, so he grabbed a blanket from the crib, a woolen thing he had seen his mother knit herself, before absently petting Tyrion as he passed. His younger brother hardly moved, only snorted softly, as curled deeper into his plush bedding. Jaime made his way, slowly over to the low burning fire, humming. He spread out the blanket, and carefully laid Areli across from it. Then he added another log, carefully, like Uncle Kevan had shown him how to do it.

"Mother always said to let sleeping babies sleep," he said, wisely, wagging his finger at his younger sister, "So I can only play with you, for now, Areli. I know how much it hurts to be separated from your twin. Cersei says it hurts here."

He gestured to his chest, tightening tightly across his sleeping shift, scrunching up the cotton material in his fists. He let his fist relax.

"So I'm sorry. But you're with me!" he said, smiling brightly.

The baby had looked at him. Before she had laughed.

Laughed for him, sweet and high, an impossibly nice thing that made his eyes prickle. Mother was gone... But Tyrion and Areli were here.

"Let's play, sister."

**OOOOOOOOOOOOO**

Areli watched as Jaime fell asleep, finally, around her, head curled absently into her stomach. His hair, a golden blond, was in ringlet curls, soft to the touch and very well cared for. Trying to entertain a four-year-old with a body of a few months was exhausting, but filled Areli with a warmth as she watched the innocence play across his beautiful features, watched at the sheer simple delight he got in trying to play peek-a-boo, trying to get her to crawl with him, making little-roaring noises, claiming to be a lion out on the hunt. She could only laugh and smile at it, at the way he held himself, as he bounced about on hands and knees to play with his younger sister.

_I am right where I am supposed to be._

"Oh, by the Seven," muttered a voice, and with half-lidded eyes, blurred, Areli listened as the Maester sighed, "Lord Kevan, call off the search, I've found him."

"Oh thank the Mother," muttered a foreign voice, coming into the Nursery, "Oh. Oh. My is that not a sweet image… Tywin is going to be furious that Jaime disappeared like that, no matter how innocent his intentions are. Isn't this the second time he's run off to find his siblings?"

"I imagine, my Lord," said the Maester, sighing again, "And yes. Lord Jaime has been most insistent on seeing his siblings… If it were not for the fuss that Cersei made this morning, I imagine no one would have been the wiser for it."

"How many lessons has the lad miss today?"

"Two. But as his teacher, I feel the excuse is justified, though I do not think your brother would agree with me."

The man, Kevan, hummed.

"No, no he would not… So, Tywin told me the babes would live?"

"Indeed, my Lord."

"I am thankful for that. I could not even come to them, for fear of seeing Tywin's and Joanna's children die. I am a craven, but I am brave enough to admit it. Go on and tell my Lord Lannister that his son has been found."

Footsteps, soft on what she had discovered is smooth, polished stone, come to closer, and she is surprised by the way the man, brother to Tywin Lannister comes and kneels next to her and Jaime. He reached for her, and carefully pulled her into the crook of his arm, gently cradling Jaime's head so it wouldn't slam against the marble, making his head fall into his lap.

"Hello, little lion cubs," he said with warmth, "So sorry I have not come sooner, little Areli. Look at you. So small."

Areli stares at him, cataloging the differences between this warm, slightly broader man than her biological father. She wonders.

_I am right where I'm supposed to be._


	6. Areli III

_Areli III_

_She was back at Winterfell's Godswood._

_She understood before she could even open her eyes. She felt it. If she were to be poetic, it was something deep in her heart, a certainty that felt supernatural that she was within the home of the Old gods of this world, on the property of the family that her own would tare apart if not for her existence. She opened her eyes, clear, nearly but not quite up to par to her twenty/twenty vision. But it was well within normal infant development, as far as she knew. It had never been her jam, children, and when deciding her career as a nurse, she had with little thought or remorse crossed off both prenatal and pediatrics. It wasn't as if as Ana she hadn't hated children- she does not think she ever could find it in herself to truly hate anyone, let alone an entire age group. She was a quick fuse but burned out much too quickly to ever feel a true grudge. In this life, though she understood she was literally a different person, she also did not think she would change either. But children were always so... Strange to her. Foreign and sometimes unsettling in how innocent they were. So, she did not know much about child development more than the most basic and vague knowledge._

_But her eyes were strengthing._

_As Areli, she was growing, her body, slowly, **so agonizingly slowly,** catching up to her mental capacity. The lofty and far distant goal of full automation was far off, but closer than before._

_With her stronger, more mature eyes, she could see the sunlight filtering through venous red leaves. She was cradled by the roots of the wirewood, starched bones, on a bed of those red leaves. She is cradled in bones and blood… She can feel eyes, so many, watching her from the branches she vaguely sees in the distance. She is not alone, but she feels no comfort in that thought. Because Magic and Monsters are real and within her reach. Waiting for her._

_She blinks, closes her eyes with the panic clawing at her throat. She cannot even cry or whimper, too aware of the things that watch her._

" _Areli," said Joanna Lannister, warmly._

_Areli's eyes open. Joanna is next to her, face soft and facing her. Since she was so close, her face was vividly clear, and so_ _**young** _ _, barely in her early twenties. Areli said nothing back, not even a coo. Joanna only sighed, hand reaching out to lay on her head, threading slim, soft fingertips through her fine hair. She smiles. Areli sighs as well. It is a huff of air, it blows away Joanna's blonde hair, flyaway strands falling into her smiling face. It shows, how… Human this ethereal woman is. Because her beauty is marred by that movement, by that frustration on Areli's part._

" _I know sweetling. I am sorry to take away your false hope. But no daughter of mine will ever be in denial over themselves," she murmured, green eyes intent, "Least of all you."_

_She says this every time. She always is adamant that Areli could not deny herself. It made the part of her that mourned the loss of being Ana the most want to scream, claw and at those leave green eyes. But she doesn't. For one, she can't, for another, she didn't like the thought of violence. Her anger was misplaced anyway. She wasn't angry at Joanna, not really. She just angry at the situation._

" _Why… Why do I dream of you?" Her voice is sweet and clumsily. But it isn't the voice of an infant. Instead of a child or a young woman, it is every shifting. Ever inconsistent between the two. Some of her words are an echo of the two voices, of her voice as Ana and something of what her voice would be of Areli. The dream is her world, she supposed and her communication skills were more on par on what she was mentally._

_And she had dreamed of Joanna, every night, always in the Godswood. The woman, more often than not, did not speak to her, only held her and sang lullabies. Areli on her part had refused to speak at all, even if the knowledge of the possibility had been hanging in the back of her mind. Now… Now she cannot help it. She… She was so tired of silence in her waking moments. Of being able to talk to someone who wasn't a babbling baby. She does not know if she can handle it in her dreams either._

_Jonna hummed, again._

" _I wish to see you."_

" _Do…. Do you try to see them?"_

_She wonders. Joanna cannot be attached to her surely, as much as she was to her husband or her two eldest children. Part of Areli denied, despite everything, that she was this woman's child._

" _Your father is too pragmatic, too narrow to open his mind. He is so logical, he would not let me in And I do believe to dream of me would hurt him if he ever accepted me into them. Cersei is much the same. Jaime… Jaime cannot linger with the memory of me. He is so sensitive a child."_

" _And Tyrion?"_

" _I will haunt his life. I cannot haunt his dreams. He is too young."_

" _What of my dreams, Joanna Lannister?"_

" _You have felt death. Perhaps that is why I feel as if I must see you. You understand me." confessed the young woman, "And you are mine, Areli. My babe. If I can see one of you, it delights me that it is you."_

_Tears slip down her sharp cheekbones, from her beautiful eyes. Hands reach, thread through her limbs, lifting her, pressing her to her breasts to nestle between them._

" _I love you, my Areli."_

" _... I'm sorry. I know you want comfort. But I just died myself. I don't think I can give you what you want."_

_It was a struggle. She couldn't deny that. The woman in front of her was mourning as much as her. And she wasn't reborn. She wanted to hate Joanna. Wanted to hate her as she came to her, every night, singing and love and sorrow about her. She clung to Areli. She sang to her, loved her, and Areli wanted nothing more to be far away from this ghost in her dreams. But Joanna would not let her go, a mystical connection between the two that Areli could not understand or feel comfortable with._

_The guilt of the woman's death haunted her._

_The love she gave she gave so freely choked her and locked her into the understanding of being someone_ _**new.** _ _To discard Ana Lee._

_She was not so sure she could_ _**discard** _ _who she had been._

" _I know, sweetling. I know. I will allow you to mourn, to understand your new life. But remember-"_

" _I am right where I belong."_

_Joanna smiled._

_"Yes. And they will Hear You Roar, my little lioness."_

OOOOOOOO

Areli wakes.

It is quick, her eyes flying open and her young heart is pounding. She licks her lips clumsily, blinking rapidly. She had not meant to go to sleep, but her infant body has it own rhythm that no mental capacity can control. She sleeps at a drop of a hat, and every time she closes her eyes she sees Joanna in the godswood, waiting for her.

She sighs.

"Hello again, young ones," and that's the Maester, briefly, she wonders if anyone will ever say his name so she can learn it, "How do you two fair as of today?"

So far, this older man is one of the few constants in her new life. Beyond her fellow twin, and Jaime, and the wet nurse, he always comes, like clock-work, to inquire or check on them. Every few hours, every day. Her biological Uncle, Keevan tries, but he is more or less in charge of the castle- Casterly Rock is no easy thing to run, and he has his hands full. At most, he can see them once a week, if that. She has never seen Tywin again, as he is in King's Landing more often than not as Hand of the King and Cersei is just as absent. Gentle hands descend on her twin, carefully checking his frightfully small limbs, cradling his larger than normal head, checking his pulse and breathing. He works carefully and delicately, humming as he does. She notes, with a small amount of hope, that perhaps this world is far more gentle than what she expects. She usually squashes down that hope rapidly because while it does great things for her moral she has always been a realist.

She still remembers the look on her Tywin's face, after all. The man, grief-stricken, did not look as if he wished to show her or her twin any care.

"Well, young Master Tyrion," says the Maester with a slight cheer, "You seem to be completely healthy if a sore because of the stiffness of your limbs."

The old man proceeds to massage the boy's tiny, shorter than average arms and legs. He does it for stimulation and stiffness of the poor underdeveloped muscles. Areli gurgles, gently, in approval. The Maester looks at her, a small smile quirking on his lips.

"Happy little thing, are you not?" he mummers, in faint approval, "Hardly cry, don't you sweetling?"

She gurgles in answer, not even bothering to try and form words in front of him. She had a couple months, logically, until any form of language would be acceptable. She's using Tyrion as a measuring stick, and while she plans on improving her mobility and language skills, she's not going to show her cards without Tyrion getting there first. She doesn't see the point of doing so, and she really doesn't want more attention on herself beyond necessary. She thanks whoever is listening that Tyrion is intelligent, as that means she has less time to be confined to baby actions.

"Your mother would have loved you both."

She blinks, surprised and turns away, her mind on newborn leaves as eyes and a gentle kisses to the temple, of cradling limbs of both flesh and bone and bleeding trees.

She needs not the Maester's comfort.

Her dreams are proof enough.


	7. Areli IV

__

_Areli IV_

Tywin Lannister returns to her life as many people seem to, catching her unawares as she stares bored, above her, her twin asleep and huffing gently against her sensitive skin, a silent comforting presence. At first, she was trying to entertain herself by humming a song beneath her breath. The embers of the fireplace are low and almost gone, the once frequent crackle and pop of the wood are few and far between. She tends to be that, just plain  _bored_  when the crushing depression of her situation is not weighing her down. He looms into sight, silently and she can only jump as he looks at her. He is alone, silent and green eyes, so dark that they are nearly black in the low light, staring.

She can still see grief in him.

His face is carefully blank, carefully arranged, stubble was gone to smooth skin and sort of ridiculous mutton chops. His hair is closely cropped, shaved to only a faint fuzz, golden and dark. But beyond that, she can see the heavy lines of lack of sleep beneath his dark eyes, a tightness to the set of his thin mouth, a paleness to his skin, perhaps a lack of elasticity in neglecting his health.

She pities him.

She pities him as she pities Joanna, the phantom in her dreams. That pity grows, each night as the woman sings and whispers words of love in her ears, underneath the boroughs of blood and leaning against the bone of the heart tree. And she feels so much  _pity_ at that moment as the man comes to stand next to her shared crib, watching as he does, both for herself and for the man that looms over her.

"Do you not sleep?" he asks of her, voice deep. It is a smooth bass, seeps into her bones, lovely and so frigidly cool, "I swear every time I see you awake pale thing."

She shivers in the warm wool of her crib.

His hands come down, carefully, large and deeply calloused, pull at the blonde curls of her head. It is an entirely gentle movement, careful not to pull too hard. It's in that gesture that she remembers that he is a father of four very young children. Two of which she bets meet every one of his expectations.

"All of you is without color. You are a white thing. I can see your veins, blue spidery things across milk-white flesh. You look a corpse."

He frowns. It is a slight downward tilt of his lips. So slight.

"Save your eyes. You… You have her eyes. Already they have turned from the blue of birth to her eyes. It would be much easier if you did not have her eyes."

Areli blinks.

_So I have Joanna's eyes… Nice to know._

"You should have died in her stead," he whispers it like a secret, the great Lord of Casterly rock, confessing what seems to be his greatest wish in the dark of the nursery of his home, "Both if not at least one of you. Joanna should be here, not you. You left her bleeding beyond imagination. I can still smell it in my sleep, the scent of death and blood and how she smiled at both of you even as she slipped away."

He must think himself really alone, unknowing to his witness bellow him, his youngest biological daughter hearing as he wishes for her death. The grisly scene of her birth and Joanna's death. She wishes this would stir her anger, her hatred for her vague knowledge of this man… But she understands him, has seen his like in so many people with the ER, blaming something, anything but fate itself for the loss of someone they loved. She had, in her last life, received all forms of grief from strangers, the hatred for 'not doing enough', the gratitude for trying to save a loved one. She had bared both, had understood both and did not allow those potent emotions to stop her in her work as a nurse that just wanted to  _help._

Tears prickle and she lets them fall. Carefully, ignoring the possible repercussions, she presses herself into the fist he has made around one of her long curls. She thinks of the song Joanna had sung to her just before she had woken up and she opens her mouth to sing it as well. She doesn't bother with words, she dislikes the way they sound clumsy on her still unpracticed tongue and toothless mouth, but rather a wordless imitation of the song.

Tywin freezes, all muscles stiffening at the sounds coming from her throat.

It is clear and high, sweet as a birdsong or the chime of bells. Even to Aleri's ears, it sounds… Inhuman, but it is a vague thought. This is the world of Monster and Magic, after all. If she were a more fanciful person, as someone reincarnated she would think she was an example of both.

Unnatural and Magic.

"Joanna adored that song," he whispers, and she falters at the fact that his voice has grown hoarse, "She would sing it to Jaime and Cersei in their crib. She sang it to me before I began to court her. She… She said it would remove my unpleasant expression."

Green eyes so dark look at her. Almost pleading.

His eyes, cool and assessing, no longer red-rimmed as they had been, but instead were a frighteningly dark green. Jaime's had been as soft as and pale as the new leaves of spring as had Joanna's, but his father's eyes are as full and dark as the fruitful color of summer leaves, sparked with golden flecks. They would have been incredibly beautiful, but the color wasn't the only thing striking in his eyes. They were… Cold now. No longer blazing fury. But rather still, cool, calculation.

But as he looked at her she saw something past the cold. Saw a man who had lost his world.

Areli opened her mouth again, and sang until the Great Lord of Casterly Rock left, just as the light of Dawn came to the nursery.

He left as he had come, silently.

**OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO**

_Joanna smiles._

_It is a bright, grateful thing. She presses kisses to Areli's temple, her cheeks, nuzzles her strong Grecian nose against her own smaller one, humming gently a wordless trill of joy._

" _Thank you, sweetling. Your father needs more gentleness then most would think."_

" _Must I be the one to give it to him?" her question is not angry, just soft and tired._

_She feels so tired, all the time. She feels even in her sleep she gets no escape. Joanna is always_ _**there.** _

" _Who else is there?"_

" _He has three other kids."_

" _Cersei is self-centered. Jaime is too content with what is given and Tyrion wants from Tywin."_

" _So it is left to me, the changeling in your household?"_

_Another smile._

" _You keep denying yourself, doubting your place. You are Areli Lannister of Casterly Rock. You are-"_

" _Right where I am supposed to be."_

_A giggle._

" _Exactly! You know the words, now it is only left for you to believe them."_

_She sighs._

" _Give me time. Just… Give me time. I need that. I deserve that."_

" _My gentle-hearted girl. Use it well. Heal as you wish, but do not forget to touch those who need you."_


	8. Tywin I & Joanna I

_Tywin I_

The babe is asleep in the small transportable cradle he had had commissioned for his elder children, but four years ago. It can house two babes- Joanna had insisted on it, desperate for the need to keep their elder twins together- but at the moment he has the one. She is draped in red silk and golden, fine wool. It makes her whiteness all the more stark. Her eyes-  _Joanna's eyes-_ are closed. Starlight eyelashes flutter long and like bird wings, a shade darker then the paleness of her skin. Her lips thin and small, look almost blue trembling in her sleep.

"Tywin, your daughter is missing!" comes a voice, high and distressed.

Tywin flickers his gaze to his only sister, Genna Lannister ( _never a Frey)_ as she burst into his Solar without knocking or announcement from the guards positioned at the end of the hall. Her cheeks, full and rosey from exertion, are contorted in a frown, her dark green eyes wide with panic. Behind her is Maester Curwin, wheezing, holding onto the Imp. No doubt they has just come from the nursery, a few floors below his Solar. Tywin knows that Genna's assessing eyes had searched for the babes as he had greeted her home last night, just a tick mark after his own arrival. They had been mostly outlying family, preparing for the coming visit of the Princess of Dorne. Genna, with her little pathetic husband by her side, had looked for her newest relations, disapproval had been clear, the furrow in her brows as she had realized the babes were not in the greeting party. His excuse had been their young age, but the reality had been his disgust to show them to  _anyone_. He was the ridicule of the Seven Kingdoms,  _again,_ from the birth of the twin monsterities. Genna had forced cheer to greet her four-year-old niece and nephew, her eyes searching but not scolding. But that had been before.

Before his unrest last night had driven him to the nursery.

Before he had heard  _her._

"Do you not knock, upon entering your Lord's solar?" is his response, calloused hands drifting, calmly making a show of refilling his quil. He tries to ignore that he has yet to touch his correspondence since he had woken up, fetched the girl from the Nursery just mere hours after he had left her.

Genna frown deepens, jiggles her second chin.

"Forgive me. Most uncouth of me," she gives a curtsy, golden and rosy hands flickering with her impatience. Behind her Curwin and the guards follow suit into deep bows, "But we had thought the girl taken!"

Curious eyes look to the mobile crib, her fine brows furrowing.

"Areli is in there, is she not?"

"Yes."

He does not explain himself. And he would not as was his right as Head of his House.

_What could I say?_

"It stands that you have taken the liberty to grab one of the newest of the Great House of Lannister and not the other. And told no one of it."

Tywin raises a brow of his own, carefully controlled mask still. He does not like the reprime he hears in his exasperated sister's voice.

"They are my children," the words are bitter on his tongue, his voice growing colder because of it, "I saw fit to bring the girl to my Solar. What is there question about that?"

He writes on fine vellum. His hand is steady, even if all he writes are the words to Joanna's song. He dismisses their concern completely to look as if he is in deep concentration.

Genna humms. It is not a happy sound, he can see at the edge of his vision that she has bared her teeth.

"I grant you that much my brother. But must you send your house in an uproar?" her voice, in her irritation, had grown louder, "We thought the baby  _GONE!"_

Tywin puts his fine eagle feather quill down, carefully cleaning its nib free of his fine red ink. He even proceeds to sharpen it with the knife he keeps at his desk for the very purpose. He closes his inkwell.

He stands.

Genna, realizing her mistake, closes her lips over her exposed teeth. He carefully keeps the quill knife in hand. Genna's second chin wobbles.

"My Lord Lannister, my apologies," her voice still holds a touch of irritation, but the apology is true.

Tywin, as if he never heard her, puts away the quill knife. He looks at his sister, the Maester with the Imp in his frail arms. Part of Tywin wishes that he would drop the thing on his fragile  _head._

"Are you finished?"

Genna sighs.

"Tywin."

"Well?"

"Yes, brother."

"Good. Do not question me, my Lady."

Tywin sits. Palms on the desk. His gaze flickers to the baby. Something in Tywin's stomach coils as those starlight lashes flutter, as she macks those lips in drowsy motions. Then those green eyes clear, focus. The pale brows, hard to distinguish from her skin, furrow. He sees her panic, hands plump and showing her health despite the pallor of her skin, searching for her twin. She does not cry, only makes a brief sound of distress before she seems to swallow the noise forcibly down. He feels his own brow tighten, before carefully reaching out to press his hand on the girl's stomach. She is small. Smaller than Jaime had been, the smaller of the two twins, at her age. So small that her stomach fits the span of his fingertips. At the gesture, the girl stills. She even stops breathing.

Green eyes look to him.

Her little breath comes in a woosh. He feels her chest expand, through wool and silk. She is still entirely too still. Starlight lashes flutter.

"Tywin?"

He blinks, hand still on the girl, looking toward his sister.

"Are you alright?"

He frowns. And then he feels himself still as small fingertips curl around his. He turns back to the girl. Sees her, hands so different from his golden skin, holding carefully onto his thumb, his forefinger. Those starlight eyelashes flutter and she astounds him by sitting forward. She sits up, much sooner than either Jaime or Cersei, who Joanna had told him had been sitting at seven moons. It has been only five since the girl's birth.

"She's sitting!"

The girl is looking at him. Her mouth pulls into a frown. He stares back, intensely.

_Sing. Sing again._

Tywin is nothing but control. But he wishes to hear the song again, in that  _voice._

"How amazing-" Genna falters. In her enthusiasm, she seemed to forgotten that she already has his ire. His sister, possibly the wisest of his siblings, falls silent.

The girl is still just staring at him. Does not make a sound, only breathes, before her gaze flicker to Genna, who had come around his desk to look. Genna stops. Nearly slips back in her silk slippers. The girl's gaze focues on Genna, her grip tightening on his thumb. Blue tinted lips tremble.

"Hello sweetling," the girl makes a noise, almost of protest at the endearment from his sister's mouth.

Genna reaches. The girl stares her down. Her hand returns to her side. The hold on his fingers tighten further.

"She has Joanna's eyes… But your gaze, brother."

He sees it. Never seen such a stern gaze from an infant, than again, he knew few babies. He had been in Royal Court for the majority of the year his first children had been born. He had paid little mind to the young princling years before, never mind any other babe at Court or within his House.

"So she does."

It is an acknowledgement. It is hard to articulate the struggle of admitting such a thing, even aloud. To think that she had come from him, as had her monstrous brother. But… The  _song_. Tywin is not a sentimental nor fanciful man. But the sound of… His daughter's voice, singing his wife's song. Tywin is also an honest man, especially to himself.

And he wished to hear it again.

**OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO**

_Joanna I_

" _You seem unsettled."_

_Areli shifted, cradled in a bed of red leaves. Blue lips tremble. The eyes that look at her are her own, a legacy of her own, given to her youngest daughter and her eldest son. Joanna Lannister smiles, knowing and humming beneath her breathe._

" _He isn't supposed to be this way."_

_Joanna smiles, brilliantly. She knows that Areli is a gentle soul. She had, upon seeing her vestige of her past life, seen a that she also had a knowledge, if vague of the goings of Westeros. Of what the Great House of the West, of what the name Lannister meant. Especially when it came to her husband's more brutal tactics. But she suppose it was a shallow knowledge… Or a highly moralistic one. She sees it, in her daughter. The morality of a gentle world that new little strife and struggle on the scale of Westeros. She sees her good heart and good will, the brilliance and frankly the purity of her kindness and compassion._

_Joanna adores her for it._

_But she also knew her daughter was swayed by her kind emotions. A dangerous temperament, especially as a daughter of Tywin Lannister. She was, at best, in danger of being taken advantage of, and at worst a weak link. She, realizes, very early in their strange relationship, that Areli was much too similar to herself. Only Joanna had learned to temper her kinder impulses, learned at the feet of a princess within the Royal Court the intrigue and dangers that came with being a noble woman. And Tywin… Tywin had been Joanna's balance, much as she had been his._

_Areli would find her balance, hopefully in a good match, if perhaps in a friend. She would also have to learn. She was a lioness of the Rock. She was a Lannister. The glory of the House, the greatness and power they held… Areli would learn and she would be_ _**glorious** _ _. Joanna felt it, understood that in death what her daughter would bring in her wake, even if she did not know the specifics. Her gentleness would perhaps hinder her, or give her a new perspective, but it would not paralyze her. Or have her deny her duty to her House, to her_ _**family** _ _. Tywin would make sure of it, if only for the sake of the house and perhaps, if Areli was able to sway him as Joanna once had, for Areli's sake. She hoped Areli would, not replace her, but rather sway her father in ways similar enough as she had in life. She did not think that Cersei, Jaime, nor Tyrion were capable of it._

" _And what did you expect of him?"_

" _Not this. It's hard to gather fury and disgust in the wake of suffering."_

_Joanna hums, fingertips sliding through thick curls, pale and fine. Areli leans into it. As indifferent as she tries to act she thinks her daughter was not immune to her love and affection. It heartens her, gives her strength to return to her youngest's dreams. She, touched by the Stranger, bound to Joanna because of it, could not deny, at least on a subconscious level that they were truly mother and daughter._

" _You want monsters and villains. And believe Tywin to be the best candidate for it."_

" _Yes. But it's more than that. I know what he's capable of. I_ _ **know**_ _how he will treat his children-"_

" _You seem to forget that you are his daughter. You also seem to forget that you really do not know the man."_

_Pale brows furrow, and green eyes narrow._

" _I guess I don't-"_

_Joanna smiles, sharply. She sees weakness. She sees hesitation. And she pounces upon it._

" _Learn sweetling. Learn to know my husband, your father. He is not as monstrous as you think him."_

_He could be. Joanna is no fool and the strings of the_ _**Rains of Castamere,** _ _had never failed to unsettle her. But Joanna believes that all men had the capacity. Her husband was ruthless, ruled with fear and might. But she loved him. Loved the rare moments were the Great Lord of Casterly Rock had fallen away to show a young man burdened by the legacy of Kings and fools._

" _How could you love him?" is her daughter's reply._

" _He is a great man."_

_And he was. But it had always, always been more then that. He had_ _**chosen** _ _Joanna. A great man would have found a better match then a distant cousin from a minor branch of his own house. Should have done so. She remembers urging him to not be the fool, something he had never suffered well, and his stubborn refusal of her rejection…_

" _ **Choose more wisely my lord, for your bride. I am not enough to be the next Lady of the West, thought heartened as I am by your offer. You know your duty is to marry well, bring in influence from another Great House-"**_

" _ **What greater House is there other then my own?"**_

" _ **Your father would never allow it."**_

" _ **My father is a fool that only cares for his whore and his wine."**_

" _ **I cannot marry you."**_

" _ **Cannot or will not?"**_

" _ **What?"**_

" _ **I am not worthy of you, Lady Joanna?"**_

" _ **Of course! I am not worthy of you-"**_

" _ **I deem you to be. I deem you to be more than worthy."**_

" _That does not make him a_ _ **good**_ _one."_

_Joanna hums._

" _Perhaps not. But that is not for you to decide just now, sweetling. Perhaps it would be wise to learn him yourself."_

_Areli sighs._

" _I know of no way of judging the future but by the past."_

" _Words, by no doubt someone very wise," said Joanna, raising a brow, "But you do not know the past."_

_Areli laughs. It is a musical sound. Joanna laughs with her._

" _I suppose I don't."_

" _Then be patient, my little lioness. Be patient and learn. And remember-"_

" _I am right where I'm supposed to be."_

_Joanna smiles._


End file.
